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Monday, January 03, 2005

Reconnecting with Nature

In the past few days, I've been cramming myself with news from the tsunami-hit areas - watching CNN, listening to the radio while driving, googling on the internet. Amid the heartbreaking stories here and there, there are a few news articles that caught my, as well as many others, attention. In "Elephant heroes in tsunami disaster", the animals' unusual behaviour saved many lives. In "Tsunamis Kill People In Sri Lanka, But Not Animals" and "How animals escaped the Wave", it was reported that the majority of the animals in the catastrophic areas were able to escape from the fatal tsunami. It seems that we are faced with the undeniable truth: no matter how advanced our technology is, we human beings need to re-establish our ties with Nature and to re-nurture our senses as animals.

It is a co-incidence that the book I am reading, Cosmo Doogood's Urban Almanac for the year 2005, has a subtitle that reads "Celebrating Nature & Her Rhythms in the City". In the introduction, the editor said that in order to reconnect with Nature and Her rhythms, urbanites have to "look up (at the sky and the weather), look out (and connect with the environment we are living in as well as with other fellow human beings) and look in (and be aware of our own physical rhythms and their relationship with that around us)".

Actually, I started putting this into action on New Year's Day. I took a 10-minute walk in my neighbourhood, taking my camera with me. I have had the idea of a photograhic project in my mind for over a year. And on the first day of 2005, I started working on it. It may take several months to see if the idea would work out. But for now, let's remember to look up, look out and look in.

2 comments:

Man, the Urban Almanac rules! My friends may mock my hippie-dom, but that calendar has so many wonderful things in it. It's so important to notice and appreciate the world around you. Everyone should get one. :)

I agree totally. Thanks for the tip about the Urban Almanac. check out my thoughts on "animals escaping the tsunami" at http://jossefordart.typepad.com/art_journeys_and_conversa/2005/01/animals_used_si.html